Summary
- Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit adapts Security Breach's open-world mechanics for a fresh 2D survival horror experience.
- Players navigate as defenseless Oswald, avoiding Spring Bonnie and retro animatronics in a quest to save his father.
- Into the Pit offers more exploration freedom, with isolated areas and unlockable vents adding to the suspense of avoiding animatronics.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit is the newest entry in the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, released as part of this week’s 10th Anniversary Celebration event. The title marks a series of firsts for the franchise, as it boasts 2D survival horror gameplay and adapts a short story from the Fazbear Frights novel canon for the screen. While not an open-world title, Into the Pit takes a modern approach to its survival-horror elements, with the title tasking defenseless players with navigating a series of environments, collecting items, and avoiding its wandering horrors. To accomplish this, Into the Pit takes open-world mechanics from another groundbreaking FNAF title, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach, and adapts them to a new genre.
Developed by Mega Cat Studios, Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit tells the story of a 10-year-old boy, Oswald, who discovers an abandoned ball pit at a local eatery, Jeff's Pizza. Jumping in, he is shocked to discover that the pit can transport him back in time to 1985, when the restaurant was a thriving Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Things quickly go awry, as Oswald arrives on the day that Spring Bonnie killed six children in the past, causing him to flee the yellow rabbit. However, his nightmare is far from over, as Spring Bonnie reaches through the pit, capturing his father and replacing him in the present. With a Spring Bonnie that only he can see hunting him each night, Oswald must use anything he can find to escape his home and return to the past. Only then can he find his father and end the chain of events he started.
Every Five Nights At Freddy's Game, Ranked
No matter how one feels about the original game and its many sequels, it seems fair to say that FNaF has forever changed the indie horror genre.
Into the Pit Adapts Security Breach's Best Mechanics for 2D Gameplay
2021's Five Nights at Freddy's Security Breach revolutionized the classic Five Nights at Freddy's formula for a modern survival horror experience. The title took an open-world approach to its core gameplay mechanics, with players exploring the Mega Pizzaplex, while obtaining key items, hiding, and luring its animatronic cast on the way to each objective. While this groundbreaking effort included a number of technical issues, the ideas put forth by Security Breach shifted the series in a new direction, and paved the way for a superior DLC experience, RUIN, to incorporate the mechanics to great effect in 2023. Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit takes these core mechanics and adapts them for a pair of semi-open spaces, Oswald's House and Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
Players experience five days and nights as Oswald, as he searches for ways to free his father from Spring Bonnie's grasp. Each night, players must first help Oswald escape his house, which requires him to find a route and the items required to open it. Defenseless, Oswald must avoid Spring Bonnie, lure him to different rooms, or hide, much like Security Breach's Gregory, before moving on to the next area. Once he escapes, players are essentially thrust into a 2D version of Security Breach, as Oswald uses a map to avoid Spring Bonnie and a host of retro animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's. Oswald can navigate the Pizzeria as he pleases, luring and hiding his way through its many rooms, with optional items and hidden arcade games offering enticing risks and alternative routes. After accomplishing each night's central task, Oswald must escape the Pizzeria while being chased by frenzied animatronics, before returning to the present and starting again the next day.
Into the Pit Modifies Key Mechanics from Security Breach
While Security Breach is the closest the FNAF franchise has gotten to an open-world experience, Into the Pit offers more freedom in its exploration. The Mega Pizzaplex offers players linear routes to accomplish their goals, with its major tasks enclosed in a variety of isolated areas. Into the Pit's map is also broken into isolated areas, but the house and Pizzeria allow Oswald to reach objectives by any route he sees fit, as long as he has the required item for the final door. In later nights, vents can be unlocked to form new routes between rooms, aiding in exploration and the avoidance of the growing number of active animatronics. Into the Pit also modifies animatronic encounters, offering players the chance to avoid a jumpscare by completing first-person mini-games while hiding.
Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit' s adaptation of Security Breach's mechanics helps to evolve its gameplay for the modern 2D horror genre. Together with its fresh approach to exploration and survival, these mechanics help the title break new ground for the Five Nights at Freddy's series. It remains to be seen if the FNAF franchise will experiment with more 2D spin-off titles. Given the success of Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit on STEAM, fans remain hopeful that the franchise will adapt other popular stories to games in the future.
- Released
- August 7, 2024
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Blood and Violence
- Developer(s)
- Mega Cat Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Mega Cat Studios
- Engine
- Unity
- Franchise
- Five Nights at Freddy's
WHERE TO PLAY
Jump into the pit and immerse yourself in a new chapter in the Five Nights at Freddy’s universe. Oswald wishes his town, and his life, weren’t so boring. That all changes when he explores the ball pit in a rundown pizzeria and finds himself in the past. However, Oswald’s deepest desire will have an unexpected cost…
Survive five nights of terror in this chilling adventure game. Travel between time periods, gather clues, and outrun the threat relentlessly pursuing you. Move swiftly and stay hidden, and you may just survive. But be careful—it’s not just your own life that’s on the line. Oswald’s father and children from the past could all meet their end if you don’t save them.
Experience the heart-pounding adventure of a beloved entry in the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, Into the Pit. Solve satisfying puzzles intertwined with an adrenaline-fueled story. Immerse yourself in a narrative experience.
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
